


i've seen many a heartache, there'll be many a more

by jukeboxgraduate



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Chapter 4 Spoilers, F/F, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, like pretty extensively referenced
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-06
Updated: 2020-05-06
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:14:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24041182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jukeboxgraduate/pseuds/jukeboxgraduate
Summary: Amid the reluctant chatter, the noise of the swamp, the crackling of the fire, Sadie finds herself thinking again of the O’Driscolls. She counts the days it would take to ride to the state line, to find their camp and put an end to them, the days to ride back. The answer is always too many, it would be too long to leave the camp alone.SPOILER WARNING for anything after chapter 4, don't touch it if you haven't played through dear uncle tacitus yet
Relationships: Sadie Adler/Abigail Roberts Marston
Comments: 4
Kudos: 39





	i've seen many a heartache, there'll be many a more

**Author's Note:**

> SPOILER WARNING for anything after chapter 4, don't touch it if you haven't played through dear uncle tacitus yet
> 
> shoutout to kelsey for the motivation (ie making me think about women), breanna for the coworker simulator via twitch, and to mike.
> 
> title from ola belle reed's "i've endured."

The air in Lakay is heavy and cool in a way that it shouldn’t be. In any other circumstance the temperature would be a welcome relief, but Sadie wishes desperately that it would match the sickly heat of the rest of the swamps, but it stays eerily mild by Lemoyne’s ever-sweltering standards, like - _bodies stolen from a morgue_ \- the death that lingers over their shambled encampment. 

Sadie sits on a shack's sagging step and cleans her rifle, the smell of the oil failing to comfort her as it usually does, instead stinging in her head behind her eyes. Everything sets her head on fire now - the smell of smoke, the frogs swimming in the swamp, the touch of a hand on her body. She tries not to wince when Abigail touches her, the only contact she seems to get, a light brush of a hand against her arm or her back as they pass each other or begin and end a conversation. It startles her, makes her eyes shake, but she hides it. Burying Hosea and Lenny, taking their bodies off the horses, had been more human contact than she had felt in weeks, and now the memory of the cool heaviness of their bodies is stuck to her hands like sap.

She thinks about the weight of her gun in her hand. Days ago she heard about a camp of O’Driscolls near the state line. She wants to get there before the Raiders do to clear them out herself, but it’s a long way from camp, and she knows where she should rightly be. But still, she cleans her rifle, keeps her saddlebags packed for the ride, lets her mind wander to it while she stays planted in Lakay. 

There’s still dirt under her nails from two days before, from digging graves, burying family. She feels it crunch, digging into the soft skin under her nails as she grips her rifle tighter, the sharpness bringing her echoes of her shovel digging into the dirt as the sun began to rise golden over the earth, waiting for Charles and Abigail to arrive with Lenny and Hosea.

She chews the inside of her cheek, thinks of the O'Driscolls, thinks of John - _Abigail's John, Arthur’s John, Jack’s John_ \- in prison, awaiting a rope.

She thinks of her husband cautiously, knowing he makes the ride to the state line look much easier, longs for a moment to be still and alone to sit with him in her memory. 

And Abigail may lose her own husband - if he could even be called one - and there’s a chance to save her from it if Sadie could only find a way to do it. It always comes back to Abigail and John in a cycle that serves a comfort as much as an annoyance. Arthur would understand, would ride with her if he wasn’t gone.

The bugs sound louder now, the sun too bright. Her hands still, and she stares at the gleaming barrel of her rifle, unseeing. She thinks hazily of the O’Driscolls, of the ride to the state line.

“Are you thinking of going out again?” Charles asks. Sadie startles, looks up at him. He leans against the stump in front of her. His face betrays him, knowing concern in his dark eyes. He interrupts her bad feelings more and more often now.

“Nah,” Sadie says, “well, thinking, yeah. But not going."

Charles nods in understanding. She clicks her rifle back together and slings it over her shoulder, standing up. 

“I’m heading out for a few days, if that’s alright,” Charles says. 

“Whatever you need to do, Charles. I’ll be here.” 

“Thanks for your help, by the way. With Lenny and Hosea," Charles says. Sadie feels the cool, deathly heaviness weigh on her again, the dead weight haunting her shoulder, making her knees and elbows ache. She clenches her fists, feels the dirt under her nails again. Charles gives an instinctive and firm downward tug on his rifle strap where it's slung on his own shoulder.

“It was only right. Thank _you._ “

“It’s what they would’ve done,” Charles nods. Sadie feels herself resist reaching out to him, her arm heavy where it rests at her side. Charles gives her a sad, knowing look that feels more like a warning and slowly turns to go. 

-

Sadie collects her dinner from the pot over the fire and sits down on a log eaten nearly through by bugs. She talks with everyone, listens to them, makes a list in her mind of what loose ends need to be held together tomorrow. 

The camp is mostly silent, no one having anything to say that the others do not already know. The same questions and debates became tiresome shortly after they had settled in - wondering if or when Dutch and the others will return, what to do when that time comes, what to do about John, and did you hear there's talk of hanging him? And what moves to make next, how much money there is or is not, and isn’t it just a shame about Hosea and Lenny? The same each day, everyone growing tired of them and more agitated in their recitations, and they were replaced by a heavy, tense silence that still carries the weight of all that goes unsaid. 

Miss Grimshaw comes to the fire and fixes herself a bowl of stew, and with her usual polite disdain reminds Sadie that someone needs to buy soap. Sadie agrees and finds herself unable to continue eating until Miss Grimshaw returns to the other side of the fire. Sadie expects to be confronted any moment about being a newcomer disregarding seniority, trying to take charge where she has no right. 

_Well, Miss Grimshaw didn’t step up when she could've_ , Abigail always tells Sadie, and she hears Abigail’s voice in her mind as she watches Miss Grimshaw sit in her strange, proud silence. _Besides, if she had, no one would've listened. She knows that. She just likes to be hateful._ And Abigail is right, Sadie supposes, but it fails to bring her any peace.

Miss Grimshaw shares a drink with Karen, halfheartedly pesters Pearson about cleaning up his station. Pearson doesn’t argue. No one has the will to argue now, not even Miss Grimshaw, not while weighed down by the uncertainty and the heavy, morbid air of Lakay. Miss Grimshaw announces that she'll take first watch.

The girls stay around the fire to talk amongst themselves. Abigail sits with Jack, spoons some of her stew into his bowl, listens to him talk about the frogs he’s seen along the edge of the swamp.

The men retire early, taking their nonsensical grumbling with them. Tilly offers Sadie a conversation

Sadie finds herself missing Charles. He disappears more and more often to take care of his own business, never for too long and never when Sadie may need him, but she misses his quiet company. 

Amid the reluctant chatter, the noise of the swamp, the crackling of the fire, Sadie finds herself thinking of the O’Driscolls. She counts the days it would take to ride to the state line, to find their camp and put an end to them, the days to ride back. The answer is always too many, it would be too long to leave the camp alone. 

She suspects that Charles leaves in part to keep her from leaving for too long herself.

The girls get up, offering their goodnights to Sadie and Abigail and Jack, and go off to the shack they've been bunked in. 

Abigail moves to sit next to Sadie, Jack having gone to play with his dog, who snaps at the fireflies stirred up from the soft wet ground. Abigail doesn't say anything, just sits and sips her coffee, watching the fire. Their shared silences are a routine that Sadie is grateful for, something that has lasted since Sadie was hauled into the gang. Abigail had given her her clothes, made her eat, held her when she cried.

Things have changed, but Abigail has remained at her side - easy to sit with, to work with, to talk with, to be silent with.

"The days feel awful long,” Abigail finally says. 

"And awful short," Sadie says. 

They've been chasing some sort of normalcy, trying to make money and find work without alerting authorities, still stuck in Lakay awaiting the worst. Time seems fuzzy now, something that draws and releases like a bowstring. 

"Sadie, I hate to mention it," Abigail starts, her voice clipping nervously. Sadie, elbows on her knees, turns back to look at her, her tired young face aged doubly in the firelight. "What about John?" 

"Christ, Abigail, I know. I mean, I don't know. But I know it's eating you. We all got things eating us. Especially that." 

Abigail tenses at Sadie's tone, straightening her back. Abigail rarely mentions John, but he remains another silent weight on everyone's shoulders. 

"I'm sorry, Sadie, I - " 

"At least he's alive." 

Abigail blinks hard, her brows lowering in frustration and confusion. 

"I'd sure like to keep him that way,” Abigail says simply, “excuse me." And in a sweeping motion of her skirt - a skirt Sadie once wore for weeks, when she had even more nothing than she does now - Abigail rises and calls for Jack, ushering him to bed. 

The strange, halting noise of the camp dies down. It’s painful without the others, to not have Arthur wandering around or Dutch lamenting to anyone who will listen. 

Things were easier when they had first left Shady Belle. The upheaval made sense, the arguing made sense, the pain of loss and confusion and fear was a biting reminder of life and survival. There had been no chance to contemplate the silence. Now each day feels like a dream just before waking, like being stuck in the mud up to the calf. 

The silence frustrates Sadie, drives the yoke she feels over her shoulders deeper into her muscles. 

She puts her head in her hands and thinks of the O'Driscolls at the state line. 

-

Abigail leans against the wall, listening to Tilly and Mary-Beth talk quietly to each other about whatever nonsense they can muster. Jack is lying next to her, one hand fisted in her skirt, breathing heavily with sleep. 

Mary-Beth and Tilly slowly fall silent, Karen’s drunken snoring deepens. Abigail gently loosens Jack’s grip on her skirt and carefully gets up from her bedroll. She steps quietly toward the rickety back door of the shack and finds Sadie where she expects her, sitting against the wall smoking a cigarette. The night is cool and sticky, the frogs and bugs deafening.

“Are you alright?” Abigail asks quietly. She gathers her skirt and kneels down. 

“No,” Sadie says with a tired laugh, putting out her cigarette. 

"Look, Sadie, I'm real sorry. I didn't mean - "

"I know you didn't. I didn't either. I'm sorry." 

"I know," Abigail says. 

"I'm gonna do everything I can to get him back here, Abigail. You…the three of you...I have to. I got nothing left except to make sure of that." 

"Sadie..." 

"It's all I think about. Getting John back for you. That and killing O'Driscolls." 

Abigail sighs and lowers herself entirely to the floor, leaning against the wall next to Sadie.

"Does it help?" Abigail asks.

"Does what help?" 

"Killing O'Driscolls." 

“No,” Sadie huff a laugh, “but it feels normal. And before you start, I know it ain’t.” She fidgets with a hole in the knee of her pants.

It’s nothing Abigail hasn’t heard before. She watches Sadie’s face, looking doubly tired in the low grey light of the swamp. She shifts, puts her arm firmly around Sadie’s shoulders, pulling her close as much as Sadie tries to pull away. Abigail shushes her, wraps both arms around her and holds her tight. Sadie collapses slightly against her chest, dropping her arms limply into the space between them.

Abigail is relieved by Sadie’s warmth. When she had returned from burying Hosea and Lenny she had scooped Jack into her arms and held him until he fussed about it, desperate to forget the weight of their bodies in her arms. Jack is warm and young alive, but the feeling still lingers like a damp spot on her clothes.

“I’m tired, Abigail.”

“I know,” Abigail says, rubbing circles on Sadie’s back. Abigail is too familiar with the exhaustion that accompanies having nothing. She still feels the ghosts of the fatigue of only tending to what keeps life going, what keeps minds from stilling into something cold and vile.

“I ain’t felt anything but this…emptiness ever since…” Sadie says, her voice catching. “I’m grateful to be here, but I wish I didn’t have to be.”

“I know,” Abigail says.

“You're so good to me, Abigail,” Sadie says, her face hot in Abigail’s shoulder. “You always have been, and I shouldn’t…I ain’t grateful enough.” 

“You don’t have to be,” Abigail says.

Sadie collapses further against Abigail’s chest and sniffles. There were days that seem years ago now, when Sadie cried into Abigail’s shoulder, soaking through her blouses with tears. Abigail had nearly forgotten them.

Sadie takes in a shaky breath and Abigail squeezes her arm, a silent request that Sadie speak.

“I ain’t been touched by anyone in so long,” Sadie whispers, nearly breathing it. Abigail squeezes her arm again.

“Let me,” Abigail finally says, her voice surprising her with its softness. Sadie stiffens. 

“I hate that I need this,” Sadie says haltingly but firmly as if it’s meant to stop her.

“I know,” Abigail says, resting her head on Sadie’s. “I understand. Let me, Sadie.”

Sadie is quiet a long moment.

“Please,” Sadie whispers.

“My hands are dirty,” Abigail says, an admission, a chance for Sadie to back away.

“It’s fine. I don’t care. Please, Abigail, just…” Sadie takes Abigail’s hand and holds it tightly in her own. 

Abigail lifts her head and meets Sadie’s eyes in the silvery night, her face wide open and honest. Abigail squeezes Sadie’s fingers and lets Sadie guide her hand. Abigail holds her eyes, offers her the heel of her palm and the press of her knuckles through the fabric of her pants. Sadie gasps low in her chest and leans into her, holds tightly to Abigail’s forearm with tired fingers.

Abigail casts her eyes away, watching the eerie stillness of the swamp, listening to Sadie’s restrained, jagged breathing. When she glances back at Sadie, Sadie is looking past her, grimacing blankly into space as she moves against Abigail's hand, as Abigail’s hand moves against her. Abigail wants to reach up and push Sadie's hair from her face, smooth out her forehead, but she doesn't. 

Abigail is relieved that something can still feel so alive.

Sadie gasps once like she's been hurt, her fingers fluttering against Abigail’s wrist, and freezes. Abigail looks over her face and Sadie pushes Abigail's hand away, though not letting go of it. 

"Are you - " Abigail starts. 

“Abigail,” Sadie says softly, an answer and a plea at once.

Abigail shifts, the sound of her skirt deafening her as she leans back against the wall next to Sadie. Sadie still grips her hand with both of her own, like something precious and delicate between them.

“I’m sorry,” Sadie whispers.

“You got nothing to apologize for," Abigail says softly. Sadie says nothing, just sighs and drops her head onto Abigail's shoulder.

The high drone of the frogs and the bugs is so overwhelming it may as well be silence. Under it all, Abigail hears Sadie's breathing slow to the short, heavy sighs of exhausted sleep, a rest as rare for Sadie as it is for Abigail.

Sadie's fingers flutter sleepily on Abigail's hand. Abigail rests her head on Sadie’s and closes her eyes. 

-

The sun is hot before it even rises. It paints the swamp a glittering green-gold that would be beautiful if it weren't such a sickening place. The heat of the day picks at Abigail's neck and wakes her from her half-sleep. She scans everything before them and closes her eyes again, Sadie still curled at her side in a bond of the stickiness of sleep and swampy air. 

Sadie startles at her side. She releases her hand, and Abigail's hand feels cold and empty in the absence. 

"You're okay," Abigail says. Sadie blinks in tired frustration. 

"I need to eat," Sadie says, her voice raw with sleep. Abigail nods and stands to help her up. Sadie brushes away her hand, gets up stiffly on her own. 

"I'm gonna check on Jack," Abigail says, though her stomach is growling and her head aches for coffee. Sadie nods, yawns behind her arm, and turns to go around the shack to the fire. 

Abigail steps into the stuffy darkness of the shack. Jack is asleep on their shared bedroll, sprawled out half-covered by a blanket. Tilly holds one of his hands loosely, sound asleep next to him.

Kneeling down, Abigail gently covers Jack with the tattered blanket, careful not to wake him. She pulls Tilly's cover back up over her shoulder and Tilly stirs but doesn't wake. 

Moving slowly in the dark, Abigail goes to the washbasin and splashes water over her face and neck, letting the water run down into the fabric of her blouse. She wrings her damp hands in her skirt and moves for the front door. 

The rising sun stabs at her eyes as she opens the door and steps back out into the prickling heat of the morning. The sounds of the camp here are disquieting - there is little routine in anyones' movements and no friendly chatter, no Arthur or Hosea making their rounds, checking in with everyone. Abigail would hate it if she was able to, if she had the strength to think about it.

She makes her way to the fire, the ground sickeningly soft under her feet. Sadie is sitting on a log that threatens to crumble underneath her, eating stale bread in leftover stew, holding a steaming cup of coffee between her knees. 

“Morning,” Sadie says. Abigail fixes herself a cup of coffee and stands at the fire, rolling her neck, feeling it pop.

“How are you doing?” Abigail asks, moving to Sadie’s side. She tentatively puts a hand on Sadie’s shoulder. Sadie stiffens slightly but doesn’t flinch or move away. 

“I’m alright,” Sadie says. Abigail gathers her skirt with one hand and crouches down next to Sadie, resting her forearm on Sadie’s knee for balance. Sadie sets down her food. Abigail reaches up and pushes Sadie’s hair from her face, finally. “I am. Abigail, I’m alright.” 

“I know. You always are.”

“Abigail,” Sadie sighs, lightly touching Abigail’s arm. “I don’t wanna use you.”

“You ain't. We all need things sometimes. You're a friend.” 

“I can’t drag you into this. You got John, you got a _boy_ , you don’t need this. These are my problems.”

“I’m already in this, Sadie. I’ve been in this. What I _need_ ," Abigail says, squeezing Sadie’s fingers to hold her in place, “is for you to be well.” 

Sadie looks away from her. 

“You’ve been so good to me, Abigail,” Sadie says softly, an echo of the night before.

"You've been good to me, too," Abigail says, the stubbornness in her voice steeling her. "You've been good to all of us."

"I'm gonna get John back to you, Abigail. I'll find a way," Sadie says firmly.

Abigail ducks her head. Holds back an _it’s not about John, it’s not about me._

"We're gonna get through this. We made it this far," Abigail says.

"Yeah," Sadie says quietly, her voice catching.

Abigail squeezes Sadie’s hands, straightens up and rises to her feet.

"You're dear to me, Mrs. Adler," Abigail says, and pats Sadie’s shoulder as she moves to sit next to her on the log and sip her coffee, as always.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading if you made it this far! i am quite a ways out of my comfort zone with this so i hope it hits at least a few marks. i'm admittedly unsure about my characterizations here so i would love to hear any thoughts.
> 
> i'm on [twitter](http://twitter.com/thehubbins) and sometimes [tumblr](http://hubbins.tumblr.com). i always try to follow back.
> 
> there will also be more red dead fic from me soon so yaknow. stick around if you want.


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